


Nothing Wrong

by Eldabe



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldabe/pseuds/Eldabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto left Wales, to go anywhere else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Information about various locations and a vague explanation of the British education system for Americans found below.

Ianto took a coach because it was cheaper. Went right to the National Express bays and bought the next ticket out. Out of Wales. Away. 

He didn't remember the long hours of the trip; Welsh countryside blending into English blending into Scottish. Fields and grass and sloping hills and farms and cows and fucking _sheep_. He didn't remember sleeping; he only knew that he opened his eyes and it was suddenly raining, the drops dripping down the glass and blurring his view.

By the time they pulled into the station and the driver announced that the coach was terminating, Ianto could hardly remember where he had been going. 

****

Edinburgh was more of the same. Old buildings and new construction and even a castle in the middle of the city. Jesus, he might as well not have left Wales. 

He got a room at a hostel and bought an apple and a bag of crisps for dinner.

****

The hostel had free breakfast, and Ianto cradled his tea and toast, made his own patch of quiet in the morning bustle. The other people flowed toward the door and Ianto found himself caught in the tide until it dispersed outside, leaving him alone and directionless.

Ianto walked around, hands shoved in his pockets.  He ignored the rain, mostly. Ignored the tourists. He wasn't going to _pay_ to go into the fucking castle, but it was harder to ignore than the rest. He looked at it as he lay stretched out on the grassy slope of Princes Park, peering up against the sun through the clouds. 

He walked up the hill to the castle once and stood off from the crush of tourists to watch the matching Royal Guards stand at attention and walk in their prescribed path. They didn't show any expression as they marched back and forth. The bayonets on the edge of their machine guns glinted in the sun. The whirr and click of cameras was a constant hum. Ianto walked away. 

****

The Costa on the corner was hiring. Ianto didn't go in, but he noted it with the part of his brain that noted the exact amount of money he had left, every penny. The same part of his mind that had noted the "Help Wanted" sign in the tourist kitsch shop on Sunday.

Ianto kept walking.

****

He sat in the library, in the basement with the reference books, surrounded by uni students and researchers. It was always quiet, people huddled over their desks, scribbling notes and flipping pages. No one tried to talk to him.

Ianto sat at a desk with a book about unsolved violent crimes in Glasgow open in front of him. The library was closing in twenty minutes. He left.

****

Sean Connery was knighted in Edinburgh. 

Ianto was pretty sure it happened at Holyrood Palace, but all the tour guides he overheard seemed convinced that the ceremony had happened in St. Giles. Ianto used to have a newspaper clipping about it, but it had been lost for years now.

The tour group moved away from the cathedral to the Heart of Midlothian. The tourists giggled nervously when a local walked over and spat on it. Ianto edged further toward the imposing cathedral doors.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and tilted his head up to look at the dark stained glass window, and then lower to the information sign. There was a £3 suggested donation. 

Ianto shifted his weight on the cobblestones before he walked away.

****

Ianto didn't get out of bed. He turned on his side and watched the shadows move slowly across the floor. He curled up and stretched out and turned onto his other side and closed his eyes. 

Another day. 

****

It rained every day he was in Scotland; a miserable, dripping sort of rain. He didn't even have a shite umbrella, just his ratty hoodie, and he spent far too much time huddled up and wet. He was always ducking into nearby buildings to avoid the steady drops. 

Ianto drifted through the tourist areas of Edinburgh, never leaving a few short streets of faceless photographers. He spent empty hours stretched out in a patch of weak sunlight in Princes Park. He thought about climbing Arthur's Seat, but then it rained and he shivered in his wet denim for hours instead. 

He ended up in the hostel lounge on some nights and overheard the laughing stories of other people reaching the summit, slipping on rocks in shoes not made for hiking. Everyone spoke English sprinkled with curses and asides in languages he couldn't pretend to understand.

Two Londoners complained to an American about the difficulties understanding a Scottish highland brogue. Ianto listened to the way the way they sounded out vowels and consonants, how the Londoners sounded so crisp in comparison. He wondered if he could imitate those decisive sounds, suppress his own rounded vowels.

Ianto never spoke, not unless he had to.

****

He ordered a pint—something familiar and shitty and he could feel the money leaving his hand like coins rolling down a mountain; his mental tab ticking down with every clink of metal hitting the bar.

****

Ianto bought a pre-packaged tuna-and-mayo sandwich for lunch and ate it slowly on a public bench while the sun shone grey through the drizzle. 

A man strode by in a suit. Ianto leaned forward to let his overgrown fringe flop forward and hide his face. He followed the suit with his eyes as it walked confidently down the street and turned into a Barclays bank. The pathetic sunlight glinted off the glass of the door. A crisp pair of heels walked out. The suit didn't come back. Eventually Ianto turned his head away. 

****

Ianto called Rhiannon. 

He wasn't sure how much time had passed since he’d arrived. He knew how much money he had spent, and how much he could spend on the call and still eat a hot meal for dinner. How much it would cost him to stay in the hostel another night. 

But he had lost time, somewhere. The day was just as grey as it had been when he first climbed down from the coach. 

"Oh my god, Ianto? Are you all right? Where are you? What happened?"

Ianto coiled the payphone cord. "'m fine, Rhi."

"God, Ianto, you can't just--where are you then? Do you need money to come home?"

It wasn't raining, but it would. It hadn't yet today.

"No. I just thought I should call."

_"Where are you?"_

"Scotland."

The capital of Scotland, although Ianto had had a passing moment when he wondered what would have happened if he'd terminated in Glasgow or Hamilton. Or if the coach had continued further north. It was probably colder there. 

"Scotland?"

Ianto didn't answer that. She had already heard him.  

"Ianto, love...when are you coming home, then?"

She was being gentle. And Ianto knew Rhiannon, knew she wanted to yell at him, or peer at him worriedly until he broke down and told her everything so she could go and fix it. 

She continued as he tried to sort a response. "You can still come back and take your A-levels. That one uni only wanted two C's and a B, right? You still have some time, Ianto."

Ianto uncoiled the phone chord. His words were slow, "I love you too, Rhi. Give David a kiss, yeah?"

Carefully, Ianto hung up the phone.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in Edinburgh, hence the CRAZY OVERABUNDANCE of locations!
> 
> **Princes Park**. Technically the Princes Street Gardens. It’s a long park with fairly steep slopes, as it used to be a lake bed. Edinburgh castle TOWERS over one section of it. It’s very impressive.
> 
> **Edinburgh Castle**. It’s a pretty awesome castle, perched on the edge of a mountain formed by glaciers. And it has the same sort of stiff, no-expression guards as any Royal Castle. 
> 
> **Places Sean Connery May Have Been Knighted.** Yeah. The internet and my tour guide disagree.
> 
> [**The Heart of Midlothian.**](%E2%80%9D) It’s a heart-shaped section of the cobblestone street where public execution used to be. People sometimes spit on it as they walked by, a tradition that continues today. It’s a little unexpected. 
> 
> [**Arthur’s Seat.**](%E2%80%9D) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur%27s_Seat,_Edinburgh) It’s a mountain in Edinburgh, walkable from the castle and supposedly pretty easy.
> 
> **A-Levels.** Ok, there is no American equivalent, but if I understand this correctly they are standardized subject tests every British student takes after their 12th grade equivalent. These tests are taken _after_ applying for university, and students will already know what grades are necessary to get into the university of their choice. Pressure? You bet. Students can also take these grades in their resumes for jobs even if they don’t go to university. Here, the implication is that Ianto has applied to university, but he left before taking the necessary tests.


End file.
